NASA’s Roman Mission Gets Cosmic ‘Sneak Peek’ From Argonne Supercomputer
June 14, 2024 | BUSINESS WIREEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
Researchers are diving into a synthetic universe to help us better understand the real one. Using the Theta supercomputer at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, scientists have created nearly four million simulated images depicting the cosmos as NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, jointly funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and DOE, will see it.
“Using Argonne’s now-retired Theta machine, we accomplished in about nine days what would have taken around 300 years on your laptop,” said Katrin Heitmann, a cosmologist and deputy director of Argonne’s High Energy Physics division who managed the project’s supercomputer time. “The results will shape Roman and Rubin’s future attempts to illuminate dark matter and dark energy while offering other scientists a preview of the types of things they’ll be able to explore using data from the telescopes.”
The team is releasing a 10-terabyte subset of this data, with the remaining 390 terabytes to follow this fall once they’ve been processed.
For the first time, this simulation factored in the telescopes’ instrument performance, making it the most accurate preview yet of the cosmos as Roman and Rubin will see it once they start observing. Rubin will begin operations in 2025, and NASA’s Roman will launch by May 2027.
The simulation’s precision is important because scientists will comb through the observatories’ future data in search of tiny features that will help them unravel the biggest mysteries in cosmology.
Roman and Rubin will both explore dark energy — the mysterious force thought to be accelerating the universe’s expansion. Since it plays a major role in governing the cosmos, scientists are eager to learn more about it. Simulations like OpenUniverse help them understand signatures that each instrument imprints on the images and iron out data processing methods now so they can decipher future data correctly. Then scientists will be able to make big discoveries even from weak signals.
Then they’ll continue using simulations to explore the physics and instrument effects that could reproduce what the observatories see in the universe.
It took a large and talented team from several organizations to conduct such an immense simulation.
“Few people in the world are skilled enough to run these simulations,” said Alina Kiessling, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California and the principal investigator of OpenUniverse. “This massive undertaking was only possible thanks to the collaboration between the DOE, Argonne, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and NASA, which pulled all the right resources and experts together.”
Suggested Items
Manufacturing Industry's Path to Innovation and Efficiency Lies in Exponential IT, Says Info-Tech Research Group
06/18/2024 | Info-Tech Research GroupFacing heightened competition, aging legacy equipment, and significant technical debt, the manufacturing sector is under immense pressure to innovate and modernize its operations, Info-Tech Research Group explains in a new industry resource.
Looking Into Space: EIPC Summer Conference, Part 2
06/17/2024 | Pete Starkey, I-Connect007“Innovative Development of PCB Technology and Design” was the theme of the second session of the 2024 EIPC Summer Conference, June 4-5, at the European Space Centre, Noordwijk, The Netherlands.
Hera and its CubeSats Speak with Mission Control
06/14/2024 | ESAESA’s Hera asteroid mission and its two CubeSats interacted as if they were in space, within the foam pyramid-lined walls of the Agency’s Maxwell test chamber in the Netherlands.
Global Leader Implements Ucamco's Jayda Software: Revolutionizing Online PCB Procurement
06/12/2024 | UcamcoUcamco proudly announces that a global leader has implemented Ucamco’s groundbreaking Jayda software in its new web shop. This strategic collaboration represents a significant leap forward in redefining the landscape of online PCB procurement, leveraging Jayda's capabilities to streamline and revolutionize the industry.
Gartner Forecasts MENA IT Spending to Grow 5% in 2024
06/12/2024 | Gartner, Inc.IT spending in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is forecast to total $193.7 billion in 2024, an increase of 5.2% from 2023, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. The annual growth is down from 6.6% growth in 2023.